A dear advisor of mine, who is a wonderful Ottoman historian, teaches two standard undergraduate Ottoman history classes every year: a class on the 'Early Ottoman Empire' and a class on the 'Late Ottoman Empire.' The chronological dividing line for the classes is neither before and after Suleyman the Great's reign (a common dividing line), nor some major political event, nor a war waged, nor a specific date, or century. Rather what distinguishes, for him, the 'late' Ottoman empire from the 'early' Ottoman empire is the arrival of the eponymous institution of the coffeehouse into the imperial space. He insists that the urban coffeehouse permanently shaped the way that people thought of themselves, their social world and their political world. Ottoman writings of the period talk about a 'new age' being introduced at that time, with writers often talking about major shifts in life practices. Some writers embraced and promoted these changes, others resisted. Urban space was characterized by these tensions and these struggles that dealt with everything from broad political and religious ideologies to the most minute of daily things - such as the consumption of coffee - which were also actually struggles about the constitutional 'things' of the Ottoman order. A whole new spectrum of social practices was introduced in this period, including not only coffee drinking but new forms of coffeehouse entertainment such as shadow puppetry, tobacco smoking, storytelling, poetry reading and public music performance. Most importantly, the coffeehouse drew a line between elites/notables and the rest of the population who frequented them. Nothing similar to the coffeehouse existed before the 16th century - not even tea houses represented the kind of 'forum for discussion' and dissent that coffeehouses eventually became. I quote my dear history professor: "The coffeehouse is not a 'cute' subject. It is part of that large scale change that allowed for public engagement...and for mobilization of the public if a rebellion unfolds."Coffee drinking began to be quite widespread as early as the 1400s. According to legend, Sufis in Ethiopia and Yemen observed goats munching on some beans, an the goats were quite happy. Because these Sufis needed to summon a lot of energy often for day-long or night-long prayer rituals and meditations, they began intaking coffee. Again, this is another legend :) Whether it is true or not, is not really the point. In around 1551 or so, 2 Syrian merchants hit upon the idea and they opened the first coffeehouse. By the 1590s, there was not a city, small or large, without a few or a few dozen coffeehouses. By the 1590s, Istanbul had over a thousand coffeehouses. By the 1690s in London, there were more than 600 coffeehouses that were licensed as coffeehouses (many that had names sounding vaguely shall we say 'oriental').
As I mentioned previously, all over the 'European' and 'Ottoman' space, coffee drinking was a controversial and a political act. The central role of the coffeehouse even today is not to be underestimated. Each coffee has its own style and flavour, with a different cast of characters performing certain forms of behaviour. Though (perhaps unfortunately) people no longer plan revolutions and rebellions inside of coffeehouses, they still spend a significant portion of their time inside of them, life events happen inside as do virulent discussions, sweet moments of love and the most banal of conversations. Coffee itself is still the site of political appropriation and antagonism. Though the tone has considerably died down now (as opposed to during and right after the recent war), national(ist) 'take-overs' of coffee in Bosnia are still prevalent. I was told one very interesting story about coffee in particular by two separate friends on two separate occasions. Apparently, right after the war, one cafe on 'Tito's Street' in Sarajevo listed three different options for ordering coffee. You could order 'kahva,' 'kafa' or 'kava.' (The Dayton Menu, I believe.) Each different coffee was meant to cater to a different 'national' group. So 'kahva' was meant to cater to a Bosniak sector--and it was served in a traditional manner on a copper tray with a copper coffee pot (a džezva) and a fildžan, a glass of water, several sugar cubes and a piece of rahat lokum (Turkish delight). The 'kafa' was meant to be a 'Serb variant,' and it was served on a tray as well, but in a regular coffee cup and saucer, with some sugar on the side and a glass of water. Lastly the 'Croat' 'kava' was served in a red and white 'Franck' coffee cup, with sugar in a package on the side, no tray and the option of frothed milk being added to the coffee (this was seen as a more 'Viennese' variant). In essence however, all of the coffee inside these cups, with their various styles of presentation was the same, prepared in the same manner. And the price was the same for all three. And what is the lesson of this blog posting? Well firstly, food is serious business and it too can be a great weapon in both political struggle and manipulation. But at the end of the day, you can't hide the fact the coffee is both culturally central to everyone's lives as well as made of the 'same stuff' no matter where you go.
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